Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (4K Ultra HD)

Real world article
(written from a Production point of view)

Cover
4K Ultra HD release
Series:	Star Trek films
No. of discs:	1 (4K UHD) 1 (Blu-ray, not in Australasian releases)
Run time:	119 minutes
Director:	Leonard Nimoy
Release date:	5 September 2022 (UK)
Other release date(s):	6 September 2022 (North America) 8 September 2022 (Germany) 14 September 2022 (Australasia) 7 October 2022 (Japan)
Rating(s):
Language:	English (Dolby 7.1 TrueHD)
Subtitles:	Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Croatian, English, French, Finnish, German, Italian, Japanes, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
Dubbed:	French, German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish (DD 5.1 Surround)
Reference:	ASIN B0B77YFVLT (UK) ASIN B0B43RV9YF (North America) ASIN B0B5RWKQ15 (Germany) ASIN B0B2SYRJKF (Australia) ASIN B0B6FBJSJB (Japan)
Year:	2022
Alt cover Alt cover

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a two-disc 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray/Blu-ray Disc/Digital set, first released on 5 September 2022, featuring the 4K UHD release version of the Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. As is currently usual with UHD/Blu-ray double releases of older productions, all special features (excepting the audio commentaries and isolated music score tracks, which are present on the 4K UHD disc as well) are only included on the Blu-ray disc of the release. The two discs are mounted in a standard plastic snapcase, which itself was for the North American release issued within a matching softboard slipover sleeve. The other releases came without the sleeve.

The 4K UHD standalone version of the film was released on the occasion of the completion of the long awaited^[1] in 4K HD 2160p resolution remastered version of the Star Trek: The Motion Picture (The Director's Edition) in 2022, and was simultaneously released as part of the Star Trek: The Original Motion Picture 6-Movie Collection 4K UHD set. The remastering of The Search for Spock had actually already been completed a year earlier along with the other first three original crew films, and the 4K UHD version was then released as part of the preceding 55th anniversary Star Trek: The Original 4-Movie Collection. And while an individual downscaled standalone Blu-ray version was, it was decided to wait with the individual releases of the standalone 4K UHD versions until the remastering of the last two original crew films was completed a year later.

As usual with these releases (geo-restricted to North Amrica only, as the – former Blu-ray Region B^[2] – European/Australasian releases do not have these) a redeemable code is included to download the film in 4K resolution digitally.

As is increasingly becoming commonplace, no DVD counterpart was issued for this particular release. Those dwindling number of DVD customers still wanting one, had to make do with the original Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Special Edition) DVD release from 2003.

Special features[]

As well as the extras originally featured on the prior Special Edition DVD, excepting the text commentary by Mike and Denise Okuda, the release also included the special features in high definition, as originally done for the 2009 Blu-ray release.

Commentary by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy
Commentary by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman
Pavel Chekov's Screen Moments†
The Three-Picture Saga†
Star Trek for a Cause†
Starfleet Academy: The Whale Probe†
Library Computer
BD Live: Star Trek I.Q.
Future's Past: A Look Back
On Location
Dailies Deconstruction
Below-the-Line: Sound Design
Time Travel: The Art of the Possible
The Language of Whales
A Vulcan Primer
Kirk's Women
From Outer Space to the Ocean
The Bird of Prey
Original interviews with Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, and DeForest Kelley
Roddenberry Scrapbook
Featured Artist: Mark Lenard
Production gallery
Storyboards
Theatrical Trailer†

† - in 1080p HD (others in standard definition)

Background information[]

Contrary to the Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Director's Edition and last two original crew films, Scandinavia waived the standalone version release of The Voyage Home, as it had already seen a release a year earlier, albeit as part of their Star Trek: The Original 4-Movie Collection only, but that was not much of an issue for the customer base over there as any import would do.
In similar fashion, the two Australasian (Australia and New Zealand) releases had dispensed with the separate Blu-ray disc in the set, but which was not that much of an issue either as Blu-ray versions had all become region-free as well by this time, meaning that any import would also do in the territory.
Fathom Events organized two theatrical showings on 19 and 22 August of the just completed 4K Ultra HD version of The Voyage Home in select North American cities. The choice of this film for the event was not only motivated by the Star Trek franchise's 55th anniversary, but also by the film's own 35th anniversary. Aside from the film itself, the 2009 The Three Picture Saga special feature was also shown. [2][3][4] Fathom had four years earlier already organized a similar event for the Director's Cut of Wrath of Khan.

Footnotes[]

↑ Talks of a High Definition release of the Director's Edition had been floating around since April 2013, but various reasons conspired against such a release for nearly a decade. For further background information on this subject matter, see main article.
↑ The Region geo-restricting encoding had, for all intent and purposes, been dispensed with all together by the industry upon the advent of the UHD format, even though that policy change has never been made public officially. This incidentally, has also applied for the Blu-ray disc format, whose region encoding was since late 2009 silently, but gradually, abandoned as well – which in Star Trek's case started with the Blu-ray releases of TOS Season 2 and Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection [1]^(X) – only to pick up speed from the mid-2010s onward.